Thanks-Glutton for 1

Friday night I was all set to head out to a Thanks-Glutton Celebration Potluck, hosted by Lauren of Whoa Wren. Thanks-Glutton is all about eating so much food you can barely move, and that is certainly a celebration I can appreciate and endorse. However, the weather did not cooperate, and the first snow of the season made it almost impossible to navigate my neighborhood (I narrowly missed swerving into a parked car) let alone venture into midtown Omaha to pig out. Sadface. The next morning all I could think about was a pseudo-Thanksgiving feast so I decided to create my own Thanks-Glutton for 1 - and really, what could be more gluttonous than making a ton of food and hording it all to yourself?

I'm sorely in need of a food shop, so I skipped my initial plan of making a seitan-style roast. I decided to re-tool C's veggie patties and am pretty excited about the results. I'm reprinting the recipe here with my alterations.

1 cup cooked lentils
1 cup prepared tvp
1 cup soaked cashews (mine had been soaking for about 1 1/2 days)
2 heaping tsp peanut butter
1/4 cup Braggs
1 tsp jalapeno powder
1 tbsp vinegar
spices (I included sage, basil, salt & pepper)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp wheat gluten flour


I mixed together all of the ingredients except the flours in my food processor until combined. The peanut butter was a panicked addition to the recipe when I realized we were out of tahini. I needed something to help hold the patties together and peanut butter seemed like the answer. This also spurred me to add in that teaspoon of wheat gluten flour to help the patties keep their shape. I transferred everything to a mixing bowl and stirred in the whole wheat flour and the wheat gluten flour. I heated some oil in a large pan on medium high heat and spooned heaping teaspoons of my mixture into the pan. I smooshed the balls of dough a smidge and let them cook for about 5 minutes before flipping to their other side, flattening them out some more.


I loved the nutty flavor that the addition of the cashews and the peanut butter brought to the patties, and it didn't overpower the other flavors like I was worried it would. These are ridiculously filling, so scarfing 2 (or maybe I ate 4? What?) was in keeping with the spirit of Thanks-Glutton.

The potatoes on my plate above are actually from a box! I found these for sale at Whole Foods and grabbed two flavors to give them a try.

I have never made mashed potatoes from a box but these were so easy, fast and tasty that I wouldn't hesitate to buy them again. I made the chreesy flavor. (Ed. note - Variations on the word 'cheese' are like nails on a chalkboard to me. Especially annoying are the examples that add a 'z,' i.e. 'cheez.' It's not necessary. Calling it vegan cheese gets the message across.) First you melt some butter in water, then dump in the packaged dehydrated potatoes and cheese mixture, then finish it off with some milk (I had almond milk on hand). There are different measurements based on making half the box or all of it, so of course in Thanks-Glutton fashion I made the whole box. I was initially afraid that I would have to add more spices and seasoning to the potatoes - the chreese is the same as that in Road's End Organics mac and chreese, and that always needs some more flavor - but my worrying was in vain. The chreesy potatoes were perfectly creamy and chreesy and very very tasty. The kitchen lighting/flash combo makes these look a little more orange than they were.


I rounded out my meal with some edamame and a dollop of beer cheese spread on each patty (I'll post on that spread this week, yum), and thanks to my elastic waist sweatpants and loose-fitting top I indulged in true glutton fashion. Oh, and this was the dessert I had made to take to Thanks-Glutton, mud pie brownies. When C returned home last night he was very impressed I'd eaten almost the entire pan on my own. I'll post more on these tomorrow.